Famous Affinities of History — Complete eBook

Presently, her maid came in to tell them that a carriage
was ready to take them to the station, whence a train
would start for Paris in a quarter of an hour.
Helene begged him. with a feeling that was beginning
to be one of shame. Lassalle repelled her in words
that were to stamp him with a peculiar kind of cowardice.

Why should he have stopped to think of anything except
the beautiful woman who was at his feet, and to whom
he had pledged his love? What did he care for
the petty diplomat who was her father, or the vulgar-tongued
woman who was her mother? He should have hurried
her and the maid into the train for Paris, and have
forgotten everything in the world but his Helene, glorious
among women, who had left everything for him.

What was the sudden failure, the curious weakness,
the paltriness of spirit that came at the supreme
moment into the heart of this hitherto strong man?
Here was the girl whom he loved, driven from her parents,
putting aside all question of appearances, and clinging
to him with a wild and glorious desire to give herself
to him and to be all his own! That was a thing
worthy of a true woman. And he? He shrinks
from her and cowers and acts like a simpleton.
His courage seems to have dribbled through his finger-tips;
he is no longer a man—­he is a thing.

Out of all the multitude of Lassalle’s former
admirers, there is scarcely one who has ventured to
defend him, much less to laud him; and when they have
done so, their voices have had a sound of mockery
that dies away in their own throats.

Helene, on her side, had compromised herself, and
even from the view-point of her parents it was obvious
that she ought to be married immediately. Her
father, however, confined her to her room until it
was understood that Lassalle had left Geneva.
Then her family’s supplications, the statement
that her sister’s marriage and even her father’s
position were in danger, led her to say that she would
give up Lassalle.

It mattered very little, in one way, for whatever
he might have done, Lassalle had killed, or at least
had chilled, her love. His failure at the moment
of her great self-sacrifice had shown him to her as
he really was—­no bold and gallant spirit,
but a cringing, spiritless self-seeker. She wrote
him a formal letter to the effect that she had become
reconciled to her “betrothed bridegroom”;
and they never met again.

Too late, Lassalle gave himself up to a great regret.
He went about trying to explain his action to his
friends, but he could say nothing that would ease
his feeling and reinstate him in the eyes of the romantic
girl. In a frenzy, he sought out the Wallachian
student, Yanko von Racowitza, and challenged him to
a mortal duel. He also challenged Helene’s
father. Years before, he had on principle declined
to fight a duel; but now he went raving about as if
he sought the death of every one who knew him.

The duel was fought on August 28, 1864. There
was some trouble about pistols, and also about seconds;
but finally the combatants left a small hotel in a
village near Geneva, and reached the dueling-grounds.
Lassalle was almost joyous in his manner. His
old confidence had come back to him; he meant to kill
his man.